Help Sashu beat IMHA!

Hi! My wife Shweta and I are parents of this beautiful ball of life, Sashu, who came in to our life 9 months ago.

Sashu is our 10 month old golden doodle, who has greatly impacted the quality of our lives. For those of you who know us, you've all seen her energy and her love, either in person or virtually!

Sashu was a healthy pup with a clean record of health given by our Vet. She's been living a pretty healthy life... All the way to December 30, 2021! On the morning of Dec 30, she got out of her crate per usual at 630am. This time though, she did not come pouncing at me to lick my face. Instead she plopped her butt on the ground and sat down. Weird.

The previous night after visiting some friends, she came back home and refused to eat! Again, weird! Between these two instances, she also barked twice in the middle of the night! All new things to us!

We tried our vet on the 30th December and were told that they could not support us with the new year holidays. We scheduled two appointments on the 31st December which were both helpful. At the second appointment, as the hospital (Young Hopkins, Whitby, Ontario) is a 24/7 facility, we chose to admit her there. She was admitted at 1030pm on the 31st and the doctor called us at 12 am on the 1st of January to tell us that she would recommend sashu to spend the night at the hospital.

With blood work - her vitals were extremely low - RBC <2, haematocrits inching way below normal. Anemia was confirmed. After a full day of not improving on the 1st Jan 2022, our doctor realized that she might have a rare condition called Immune Mediated Hemolytic Anemia (IMHA).

That's where we heard the 4 words we wish we didnt need to know so much about! But we do now - if we get through this, we promise to provide accessible education to every dog (or cat, affects them both) owner.

Our doctor at Young Hopkins called us on 2nd Jan and told us that she needs to be transferred to specialists AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. we got the call at 9am, and had her at Toronto Animal health partners ( AHP) immediately after (11am, check out and check in takes time).

AHP is amazing. We had a great team of ER doctors when we got there. Dr Blair Raini acted swiftly and got her blood transfusion first and a treatment plan shortly thereafter. We also got a critical care doctor (Dr. Dawn Crandall) assigned to us. Dr. Dawn is AMAZING! She took care of sashu over the next 35 hours, until her condition gravely deteriorated on the morning of 4th Jan, 2022.

Sashu was dying. I avoided that word all through here :) one data point. Normal Billirubin for dogs is 15-18. Her billirubin was at.... 1,500!!

I'm gonna pause to explain her condition here. Whats happening in IMHA? It's like the human auto immune condition. Your body starts attacking its own red blood cells. For Sashu this was vicious! Her condition was deteriorating at an alarming pace for IMHA!!

So this morning of the 4th Jan, we got to spend 10 mins with our good girl sashu. She was prone on the ground, not raising her head and just dying. We fed her some of her favourite buttermilk. I had to open her mouth and pour some in, for her to lap it up.

Then Dr. Crandall gave us options:

1. Continue current treatment - 95% she's probably not gonna make it

2. Euthanize her

3. Last chance at a miracle. There's actually this super expensive, human like treatment for auto immune disorders. Plasma replacement therapy. It costs an arm and a leg. It does not guarantee survival. Do you wanna do it?

We spent the next hour getting 2nd 3rd and 4th opinions. Shweta and I had the toughest conversation we've ever had in the close to 15 years of knowing each other.

We agreed to go for it. Leave no stone unturned.

Let's talk numbers. There's no great stats for IMHA. Animal health itself is severely lacking in terms of data and research but that's a topic for another day. IMHA survival rates are between.... 50% and 80% says one link.. 30% and 70% says another. Also what's this range for survival rates?? It is also a life long ailment but there are many dogs that lead a high quality life with going off meds too!

Numbers again. We were lucky to have listened to our close friends and gotten pet insurance. We've got our claims out with pet plan and given them all they need and hope they pay us on time.

Doggy insurances are capped though. We've blown thrown all of our 15k coverage. Our plasma treatment is gonna cost us about 25k and she's gonna need post op support of about 5k to pull through.

We've decided to go ahead and will break the piggy bank and max the credit cards to get us there. But we also appreciate any of your $20s $50s $100s and more. We have a kid on the way (few weeks out), with a reduced household income with mat leave. We might appreciate the kindness of our friends, families and just general kind souls out there.

We love sashu. Everyone who's met her, loves her. She is family. She is a big part of our lives. Help us give her a fighting chance.